2019 Reading Plans

Time to look forward and make plans for the new year. I’ve already started doing so for my personal life, so now I’d like to focus on my bookish life.

I anticipate being a bit busier this year, so my reading plans will be tailored to that expectation. My Goodreads reading goal will be something manageable for me, about 40-50 books (still deciding), and I won’t participate in as many year-long reading challenges as I did last year (so goodbye to Book Riot Read Harder Challenge and Library Love Challenge.) I will also try to ignore the temptation to participate in readathons that pop up throughout the year. I kept making TBRs for them in 2018 but failed miserably at them all. I don’t want to go through that again.

So no readathons, no Book Riot Read Harder Challenge, and no Library Love Challenge (though I’ll continue to visit my library). My top-most goals will be:

to spend less
to read more of my own books
to complete some series

But here are the other stuff I plan to do:

Goodreads reading goal

50 books

I keep increasing my annual reading goal by 5 books. I know I can hit this despite being busy because 40-50 books in a year seems to be my average. (But I have my fingers crossed that I’ll surprise myself by reading double this amount.)

---

Books I really want myself to read this year, but I probably won’t

8 books

Let’s try this again.

Almost all except two books — Becoming and Killers of the Flower Moon — were on my list of Books I MUST Read for the past two years. This is becoming ridiculous. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I’ll go a little easy on myself and say that I MUST read at least 4 of these damn things before year’s end.

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection, Vol. 1 edited by Hope Nicholson

Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeannette Ng

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

Becoming by Michelle Obama

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

---

Read some comics/graphic novels

10 comics/graphic novels

I ended 2018 having not read many comics/graphic novels. I need to remedy that. I hope I’ll read double the 10 I’ve listed and (fingers crossed) that I’ll focus more on comics that I own.

And just in case I have a hard time deciding what to read, the plan is to read at least 5 of these:

The Wicked + Divine, Vol. 5: Imperial Phase, Pt. 1 by Kieron Gillen, illus. by Jamie McKelvie

Saga, Vol. 7 by Brian K. Vaughan, illus. by Fiona Staples

Monstress, Vol. 2: The Blood by Marjorie Liu, illus. by Sana Takeda

Velvet, Vol. 3: The Man Who Stole the World by Ed Brubaker, illus. by Steve Epting

Locke & Key, Vol. 2: Head Games by Joe Hill, illus. by Gabriel Rodríguez

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll (illus.)

Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosch (illus.)

The Park Bench by Christophe Chaboute (illus.)

Run for It by Marcelo D’Salete (illus.)

Ruins by Peter Kuper

---

2019 TBR Pile Challenge

This is the only challenge I plan to participate in because it fits one of my goals for the year, which is to read my own damn books. Also, this challenge is very simple: All I have to do is read 12 books that I’ve owned, or has been on my TBR list, for one full year. Books must be read and reviewed in order to be considered completed

I always think of the books bought in the previous year as new, so I’ll only consider books for this challenge that I bought/received (on my shelves or on my iPad) in 2017 and beyond. This challenge and the list of Books I MUST Read are the most important, so I also plan to break my norm and fully PARTICIPATE in this challenge by posting my reviews of the books in time to make the monthly check-ins (fingers crossed on this) and commenting on others’ posts (hopefully).

I failed miserably at this challenge last year, but I’ll do better this year. My TBR for it is slightly different from last year’s (though I could have used the old list since I read NOTHING from it).

The Isle of Blood by Rick Yancey

Hammer Head by Nina MacLaughlin

Journey by Aaron Becker (illus.)

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Face: Cartography of the Void by Chris Abani

Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 4 by Hiromu Arakawa (illus.)

Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente, illus. by Ana Juan

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

We’re allowed two alternatives in case the books above suck. Mine are:

Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse by Chris Riddell (illus.)

Rasputin: A Short Life by Frances Welch

---

Classics Reading Challenge

Actually, I’ve already failed my Classics Club Reading Challenge, but I’m posting this here anyway because I would like to include some classics in the stack of books I read every year. Since I’m beyond horrible at this, I’m assigning just 2 classic books to myself, and I’ve already started both of them (although I DNF’d paused reading them for a couple months).

Dracula by Bram Stoker, illus. by Becky Cloonan

The Iliad by Homer, transl. by Ennis Rees

---

Read some horror

4 books

I gotta fit in some horror somewhere. I don’t usually read a lot of such books, so my goal for them is low. Along with The Stand (which I’ve already started and do not like), I’d like to read these three:

The Stand by Stephen King

The Isle of Blood by Rick Yancey

Locke & Key, Vol. 2: Head Games by Joe Hill, illus. by Gabriel Rodríguez

The Fall by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan

---

So those are my reading plans for 2019:

Goodreads = 50 books

Books I MUST read = 4/8 books

Read comics/graphic novels = 5/10 books

TBR Pile Challenge = 12 books

Classics Reading Challenge = 2 books

Read some horror = 4 books

Looks good! 😀